New Hereford Calves

[StrojanHerefords]

I am a big believer that for the Hereford breed to be viable long term, we need to maintain as broad a breadth of genetics going forward. Here is the results of some of breeding, I am looking to move forward with:
Here is a AI calf out of the old Courtney 20B bull.

Here is an embryo bull calf out of the Pute NASCAR bull from New Zealand.
If anybody has any older Hereford semen, I can provide a good home for it.

 

[BFE]

I was in your general area this summer, flew into Oakland and drove to Yosemite and Sequoia. Went through Stockton. Lots of brown grass in the foothills and valleys that weren't irrigated. Hot. Looked like a lot of it is really good for cattle and that's about it.

Here we get not as hot but very humid, we have to select for slick hair coats. I see yours are kind of wooly, but I assume it doesn't hurt them any?

How far do your cattle have to travel between water?

What's your winter temps like?

Udders and teats look good on your girls. Do you select for those traits? I've had some Line 1's with horrible udders.

Hope your market is good for the red and white's, you have to take your own Vaseline to the sale with you here. Black baldies sell good though.

Nice calves. I like a good Herf, even though I don't have any anymore.

 

[farmerjan]

Hereford calves always look so nice and "clean" with the white against the red.
We get docked for them here too.... really hard....
Herefords were my dad's favorite, his father liked the angus... I like them healthy and raising a nice calf... and I like the "oddities"... belteds, longhorns, and my "brown" dairy cattle....
Oh well, some of us have to be different....

 

[Ky hills]

I agree, I think Herefords can offer some good traits.
Around half of our cows are Hereford, I decided to move away from Angus several years ago.
Selling straight Hereford commercial calves is a problem. We do have a Hereford influence sale twice a year in this state, I have bought several groups of heifers through it and have sold calves too. It's under new management and a new location this year so hopefully it will be a better situation than in years past.
We will give it another try as I know sone of the folks now involved and the new location is a stockyards that we often sell at.
I have been crossbreeding Angus and Herefords and kind of working in my own kind of cattle based on performance and maternal, more so than hide color.
I moved away from Hereford bulls as I wasn't happy with the last couple I got,
I went with Simmentals in the last 2 bulls I e purchased to try to maintain milk and maternal and also give some more frame to our calves.
It seemed like the Hereford breed at least in the mainstream direction is terminal type that doesn't add the maternal or they are bred for the show ring and lack adequate frame along with other things.
I know there are others out there, but again the marketing aspect of Hereford feeder calves doesn't have the options that others have. I'd probably have straight bred herefords if that wasn't the case.

 

[Logan52]

In 2013 I purchased a pen of 705 lb. Hereford heifers from the Hereford influence sale at Bluegrass South and took them home. This turned out to be the best deal I ever turned in the cattle business. Turned them out for the summer with a Red Poll bull I had at the time, a proven easy calver.
They all quickly settled and prices for cattle started to rise. My daughter took pictures and we posted them on a cattle for sale page on the internet. They were pretty and we sold them to a man over 900 miles away for a price I am hesitant to reveal. I really had little in them but summer grass and one trip through the chute to vaccinate and preg check.
Herefords do offer a lot, but as had been said, the dock on straight Herefords is just too much to overcome. To me, a vigorous looking Hereford or a thick red roan Shorthorn are the most attractive beef animal going, but both are a real drag on the market.

 

[Travlr]

To me, a vigorous looking Hereford or a thick red roan Shorthorn are the most attractive beef animal going, but both are a real drag on the market.

I'm with you there... All breeds have their less desirable animals, but the top Herefords and the to Shorthorns have a lot more eye appeal than the top in other breeds, to me.

But the financial realities are what they are. CAB is killing off some great breeds.

 

[Ky hills]

In 2013 I purchased a pen of 705 lb. Hereford heifers from the Hereford influence sale at Bluegrass South and took them home. This turned out to be the best deal I ever turned in the cattle business. Turned them out for the summer with a Red Poll bull I had at the time, a proven easy calver.
They all quickly settled and prices for cattle started to rise. My daughter took pictures and we posted them on a cattle for sale page on the internet. They were pretty and we sold them to a man over 900 miles away for a price I am hesitant to reveal. I really had little in them but summer grass and one trip through the chute to vaccinate and preg check.
Herefords do offer a lot, but as had been said, the dock on straight Herefords is just too much to overcome. To me, a vigorous looking Hereford or a thick red roan Shorthorn are the most attractive beef animal going, but both are a real drag on the market.

I've purchased heifers there that year and a few before and after too. Most of what I bought I'd sell them as bred heifers the next year. I've kept several for cows that didn't make it into the bred heifer sale for one reason or another.
They've typically made good cows.
Sone of my favorites have been some Brahman influenced calves that were put in groups of what they call RedX. I usually bought BlackX and RedX which really is BWF and RWF with sometimes a solid or cross of something else that apparently the graders don't know what to do with. Wound up with a steer once in a group of graded heifers.
Calves are supposed to be weaned atleast 45 days but once got a group that a few in it were not weaned.
I stopped selling in the sale when we got a call that one of our heifers was bred and we had to pay $200 to the buyer.
To this day I don't believe it, there was a mistake somewhere, because our vet had checked our heifers and she was open. I separated her away from the bull after that and watched her cycle several several times before the sale. One time before I moved the bull to another farm I got him in the barn because he was standing by the fence when she was in heat and I didn't want him to go through it.
There is a demand for Hereford females, you can sometimes do pretty well advertising them online like that, it just depends on if the right person is looking at the time.
We sold a couple Hereford Heifers at the bred heifer sale one year. We were talking with the sale manager who is an Angus breeder, about that we were going to bring any back home that didn't bring a certain amount. He naturally assumed we were talking about the red ones. He said yeah those things may not bring anything. They weren't the ones we were concerned about, they topped the whole sale and we brought back a couple black heifers.

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

It appears the horned cow (that we can see) is going to have a hard time raising that nice calf. Tough calving with feed on the ground like that. I got close to trying to do that this past spring - but, our rains came finally and wouldn't quit.
I love the red cattle and I am fortunate enough to be able to breed as many as I want. Seedstock buyers are paying a premium for red heifer calves (can't keep them in my herd!) and my feedlot buyer doesn't care what color they are. So any black cows that are carrying red gene generally gets bred to a red bull or at least a hetero black bull. I've been lucky to get my share of the 25% reds out of black/black parents.
I know many years ago, the Herefords got a bad reputation from the feedlots because they put on too much fat and were hard to marble. I would "assume" the breed has isolated blood lines that are fitting the feedlot standards. I always admired the Herefords when we lived in Kansas - big rangy cows. Then when we moved out here, it was like "what the he!! did the breeders do to the Herefords. But, few years later we realized everyone out here had only POLLED Herefords. They were a bunch of dinks. Now that the two breeds merged as 1 association, the Herefords are more impressive than the Angus breed. Angus went backwards (IMHO) and the Herefords have done a major job improving - at least improving EYE appeal - big volumed, heavy muscled - more my kind of cow. I don't know if they perform well in the feedlots.

 

[StrojanHerefords]

I was in your general area this summer, flew into Oakland and drove to Yosemite and Sequoia. Went through Stockton. Lots of brown grass in the foothills and valleys that weren't irrigated. Hot. Looked like a lot of it is really good for cattle and that's about it.

Here we get not as hot but very humid, we have to select for slick hair coats. I see yours are kind of wooly, but I assume it doesn't hurt them any?

How far do your cattle have to travel between water?

What's your winter temps like?

Udders and teats look good on your girls. Do you select for those traits? I've had some Line 1's with horrible udders.

Hope your market is good for the red and white's, you have to take your own Vaseline to the sale with you here. Black baldies sell good though.

Nice calves. I like a good Herf, even though I don't have any anymore.

We ae out east of Stockton, right past where the almond trees stop. We have dry summers and wet winters, so it generally feels cooler than the thermometer would indicate. The lowest it gets in winter is the mid 20's. Right now the cows have to go a mile between water and syrup. I don't explicitly select for udder quality with us calving when we do the cows don't have much milk to them.

The market for Herefords is not good in our state now but that is okay with me because my running costs are less with the Herefords.

 

[mayesfarm]

I totally agree with your statement about maintaining the broad genetic base and commend your efforts. I had the pleasure to spend several hours looking at cattle with a group of prominent southeastern hereford/polled hereford breeders a few weeks ago. Someone made the comment that all the pedigrees, regardless of who's sale catalog it was, look alike nowdays. There are a lot of entire bloodlines that have been lost over time, some for good reason, others just because they were not cool for a season. I am trying to maintain a small group of straight Victor Domino cattle. Some well established breeders ridicule me, while others offer advice and even genetics to help my program and I thank them for it.

 

[elkwc]

We have mainly Black cows. Mainly Angus with a little Gelbveigh and Simmi in them. Our buyers don't want more than 25% Continental. We use some Hereford bulls. All but one has been horned. The one polled bull lasted one year. It is easier for me too find genetic variation in Horned Hereford cattle than it is in Anguss and Polled Herefords. I'm looking at a polled yearling now but he is sired by a horned L1 sire. We get a few red calves but they sell right on the groups of black calves. We have around a half dozen Hereford cows we use to raise baldies and also a few to try to raise bulls to use. The Herefords we have have plenty of growth and feed well. I sold an Angus bull sired by top Angus carcass genetics. Used him clean up in heifers. His calves were sorry. Never pulled one though. Looked like Black Wagyu's. We have quit using Continental breeds. Using Hereford and Angus now. We don't get docked here on a good one like many say they do.

 

[mickroos65]

I am a big believer that for the Hereford breed to be viable long term, we need to maintain as broad a breadth of genetics going forward. Here is the results of some of breeding, I am looking to move forward with:View attachment 35675
Here is a AI calf out of the old Courtney 20B bull.
View attachment 35676
Here is an embryo bull calf out of the Pute NASCAR bull from New Zealand.
If anybody has any older Hereford semen, I can provide a good home for it.

Nice calves. Please post pics as they grow. Like to watch them develope.

 

[Charbrangus]

In Florida the market loves black baldie but will kill you with a red calf. Anything red will bring from 10 to 30 cent less per pound.

 

[anewcomer]

Worked for an order buying firm in the early 2000's in the southeast. Virtually every order we had for various weights and sexes started off with "no Simmentals, Herefords or Gerts (Santa Gertrudis). At that time there was a distinct aversion to those types of stocker calves. I believe in the last 20 years, those breeds have improved their cattle to reduce the perceived weaknesses of the early 2000s. Not as sure about the Gerts.

 

[Travlr]

Worked for an order buying firm in the early 2000's in the southeast. Virtually every order we had for various weights and sexes started off with "no Simmentals, Herefords or Gerts (Santa Gertrudis). At that time there was a distinct aversion to those types of stocker calves. I believe in the last 20 years, those breeds have improved their cattle to reduce the perceived weaknesses of the early 2000s. Not as sure about the Gerts.

I can understand a traditionally focused feed operation not wanting to take a chance on Gerts, but Herefords are every bit as good in the feedlot and on the rail as Angus. And although I have no personal experience with Sims I doubt they are far behind if at all.

It all comes down to the feeding operation and what they are set up to do. And pretty obviously there are feedlots that do just fine with Brahman influenced cattle.

 

[StrojanHerefords]

Thanks for all the kind words, one thing that I do find frustrating is the cold shoulder that I have received from the American Herefords Association. I believe that we are the oldest active Hereford breeder in California, yet I have never been called on by anybody from the AHA. In 2020, my father and I attended the World Hereford Conference in New Zealand. We were excluded from the photo of the American attendees and no mention was made of us taking the trip even though I was the only one who brought home any semen from the conference.
The times when I have tried to register animals or semen that I have imported has been troublesome. When I tried to get Nascar registered in the US, the two folks with whom I had traded semen with and I contacted the AHA on how to register the calves and we got three separate stories. But the Hereford is as much my mine as anyone else's. And you can take the horns from my cold dead hands.

 

[BFE]

I can understand a traditionally focused feed operation not wanting to take a chance on Gerts, but Herefords are every bit as good in the feedlot and on the rail as Angus. And although I have no personal experience with Sims I doubt they are far behind if at all.

It all comes down to the feeding operation and what they are set up to do. And pretty obviously there are feedlots that do just fine with Brahman influenced cattle.

Simmental got a bad rap for being too big, if I'm not mistaken. They had good growth but made too big a carcass when taken to the same finish as an English breed. Those issues have been resolved, but there's still a lot of buyers who use it as an excuse to dock, if they know you have Simmental.

 

[BadMoonRising]

I've run horned Hereford bulls with Angus for years in central Alabama with little noticeable price difference for the red black baldies that math brings.
I'm a small, commercial farm, reliant on my local stockyard. It sometimes helps to sell in lots. If no, because my calves are selling consecutively, the buyers usually recognize the odd red calf is of the same stock.
Not knocking Herefords, I think they are beautiful, but the price difference is arbitrary and ridiculous. Doesn't mean it isn't real.
Good luck, everyone, wishing you all healthy calving!

 

[tex452]

We have Hereford, BA, charolais, black moltley face and some Brahman influenced calves, if I had to pick one to feed out I would probably pick one of the Herefords.
I know they are better calves than some of the black ones, but if ran through the sale barn the BA influence would bring more.
It's a shame what CAB has done to the rest of the breeds

 

[Ky hills]

We have Hereford, BA, charolais, black moltley face and some Brahman influenced calves, if I had to pick one to feed out I would probably pick one of the Herefords.
I know they are better calves than some of the black ones, but if ran through the sale barn the BA influence would bring more.
It's a shame what CAB has done to the rest of the breeds

That's what we do too, sell the black ones and pick red calves to feed out for beef. We haven't been disappointed yet, and our beef is better than grocery store beef even though it's labeled as "Angus".
I agree CAB has really hurt across the board. It was a marketing strategy that just came along at the right time. It's really quite ridiculous how people have fallen for it.